Our updates

You have to love the fact that the UK has loads of bank holidays. Most of them have already been, but we took to opportunity of a three day weekend to get out of Leeds and decided to take a 3 days road trip around Wales to visit where Steve’s Grandad was born and have a general look around.

Saturday 26th Aug – picked up the hire car, nice little new Astra and got on the road. I was driving of course, as my map reading skills around towns leaves a lot to be desired – I tent to always head the wrong way, so navigation onto the motorway was left to Steve. We headed out towards Manchester, but bypassed the city and headed straight into North Wales and drove along the northern coast line. The scenery in Wales is very similar to home, just a tad greener, different sheep and more trees.

We headed into Llanfairfechan which is where Steve’s grandad was born. Really little village, not far from the sea side. Took some pics and headed back on the road. Whilst it looks a fair distance to travel you actually get around the UK quite quickly. This could also be helped by the fact that people treat their motorways over here like auto barns! We actually wondered what the speed limit was as there are no signs to tell you and when you have people flying past you at 100 miles an hour plus you have to wonder. But after asking a few people the speed limit is in fact the same as home But the difference about people over here is they now hoe to drive properly. The motorways are at least 3 lanes wide, and nobody sits in the fast lane doing 80km’s, and their doesn’t seem to be the need to crazy weaving in and out of traffic like you see in NZ.

So… from Llanfairfechan we headed back inland down through Snowdonia National Park through to a small town called Welshpool, then up the road about 3miles to a lovely B & B for the night. Being bank holiday weekend everything was booked out weeks in advance, and as it was a last minute decision for us we were pleased to get anything at all!

Sunday 27th Aug – After a yummy full cooked breaky we hit the road again and headed back west to Abergynolwyn on the coast, then on down through Swansea and around the bottom to Cardiff. Of course first point of call there was the Millennium Rugby Stadium – you can’t miss it really as it is right in the middle of town opposite the train station. We drove around the city having a gander, then headed down to the Cardiff Bay to the Welsh Millennium Centre (Canolfan Mileniwn Cymru) their equivalent to the Sydney Opera House, with the words “ in these stone horizons sing” carved out in Welsh and English along the front of the building. The wording also lights up at night and looks spectacular. Have to say though, the Welsh language is in a league all of it’s own. All I know is Wales is Cymru - and they say English is a hard one to learn!

Monday 28th Aug – Earlier start today as a bit of distance to cover to get home. From Cardiff we headed into Bristol for a brief look around and made our way north back into England and up to Gloucester. We stopped at the cathedral for about 40mins and looked around in ore at the beautiful stain glass windows and all the intricate stone and wood carving everywhere in this massive massive work of art.
It really is amazing to think that all this history has taken place long before NZ was even discovered!

From there we headed to Warwick and went into Warwick castle with what seemed like 1/4 of England as well on bank holiday. Lots of queues but it wsa nice to see what had been restored and how the other half lived all those years ago!

Well with most of Monday gone we and a few hours drive ahead of us we got back on the road and headed home via Nottingham where the camera promtly died after the first shot of the entrance of Nottingham castle. Just outside Nottingham there is a nuclear power plant - reminds me of Springfield on the Simpsons! They have them dotted all over England.